Here on the Datablog and Datastore we try to do as much as possible using the internet's powerful free options. That may sound a little disingenuous, in that we obviously have access to the Guardian's amazing Graphics and interactive teams for those pieces where we have a little more time - such as this map of public spending (created using Adobe Illustrator) or this Twitter riots interactive. But for our day-to-day work, we often use tools that anyone can - and create graphics that anyone else can too. So, what do we use? Google fusion tables This online database and mapping tool has become our default for producing quick and detailed maps, especially those where you need to zoom in.

The main advantage is the flexibility - you can can upload a kml file of regional borders, say - and then merge that with a data table. This excellent tutorial by Google's Kathryn Hurley is a great place to start. Datamarket. IMPURE. Fusion Tables (Beta)
MapBox. 22 free tools for data visualization and analysis. Review April 20, 2011 06:00 AM ET Computerworld - You may not think you've got much in common with an investigative journalist or an academic medical researcher.

But if you're trying to extract useful information from an ever-increasing inflow of data, you'll likely find visualization useful -- whether it's to show patterns or trends with graphics instead of mountains of text, or to try to explain complex issues to a nontechnical audience. Want to see all the tools at once? For quick reference, check out our chart listing all the tools profiled here. There are many tools around to help turn data into graphics, but they can carry hefty price tags. Related Blog Here's a rundown of some of the better-known options, many of which were demonstrated at the Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) conference last month. Data cleaning Before you can analyze and visualize data, it often needs to be "cleaned.
" DataWrangler Click on a row or column, and DataWrangler will suggest changes.

Feel free to add new datasets. Be sure you cite original authors. Supported graph formats are described here. Note that Gephi can open these files without the need to be unzipped. Web and Internet [GEXF] EuroSiS web mapping study: Mapping interactions between Science in Society actors on the Web of 12 European countries. [GML] Internet: a symmetrized snapshot of the structure of the Internet at the level of autonomous systems, reconstructed from BGP tables posted by the University of Oregon Route Views Project. Social networks [GML] Les Miserables: coappearance weighted network of characters in the novel Les Miserables. [GEXF] Hypertext 2009 dynamic contact network: contact network during the Hypertext 2009 conference. [GML] Zachary's karate club: social network of friendships between 34 members of a karate club at a US university in the 1970s. [TGZ] Github open source developers.